As you progress, you’ll be writing emails to more senior people. Here are some tips and tells on whether you’re doing it right.

1. Your email has to be clear and crisp. If your email looks like one big paragraph, it’s probably a run on stream of consciousness, not a well crafted email.

Opening sentence: explain intent, context, the why. “As you know, the project is in amber status and I wanted to make you aware of what actions we are taking to mitigate the situation”, “You’ll see in today’s report, the following areas are flagging amber, and I wanted to make you aware….” Usually, it’s a statement of fact, and wanting to make the person aware of something related to that.  This sentence makes you credible.

2. If you are asking the person to do something, make it clear as a stand alone sentence. “As a result, we’d like to ask that you attend a meeting, talk to Tom, something.” What do you want me to do? This sentence makes you clear…”What do you need me to help you with?”

3. Copy those people who need to be copied. If it’s someone really senior, you need to copy your boss. And your boss shouldn’t be surprised that you sent the email.

Here’s the tell on whether or not you did it right: if the person responds back. If you get nothing back, chances are you didn’t hit the mark.